Frank Bowman writes: Here follows a heavy broadcast by the everybody do nothing and enjoy life party! about "forced exchange", and "exchange"

Usury, rent, tax is behind the need to exchange. In effect, usury, tax, rent, protection money is the forced exchange, which causes us all to predominantly exchange. Pay up mate, or your on the street, shop smashed up, off your land, or jailed.
("Where the Romany gypsies, came from" has this usury , as their reason that they took themselves out of it, out of the system - they are far more than we know, or they seem, that the media portray. It may be the same with the "Mincier" travellers, too, the pre beaker, pre celt, people, they claim to be).

This usury, I think, is the pressure that has caused us to grow bigger than our small, normal, large, 150 community size.and reduces us all to 2.4 children, in an alienated world of scare cities. Its probably not that there is anything wrong with a distrust system, and nothing wrong with a trust system, ie, it's not that exchange is totally bad, but that the trustful sharing system does not pay an equal valued part, of the two, in the one aspect of providing the four basic essentials.

Because competition is an inherent natural process in an exchange, one side wanting to get the better out of the deal than the other, then a scarcity is created, and losing is created, and this matters not a lot, for hairbrushes, cars, fridges etc, etc, but.... with life's needs, we rely on this economic provision system that creates few bountiful winners, and many deprived losers. It sells us short, and causes fields, and forests and minerals, which have also been won, to not be harvested, or seeded and harvested, if they do not produce the dollar, peso, pound, and the starvation of life's needs, this known starvation of life's needs! causes death, and is the fire that the people below dance upon, and the stress of it, affects us all - all the way up the competitive pyramid, or human race. Not all can win. I can't, it's not my nature, nor the nature of my soulmates, who chuck themselves off it, or starve. Knowing the terror it causes I don't particularly want to be a part of it either, or the least I can.

This is all I know, really, quite simple. It really does come all the way back to every little child knowing that we should share our stuff, our resources (basic life resources, at least, if we cant share it all!). So, is it worthwhile me coming, if my area of work, is not the economic exchange money system, but my area of work is working in increasing the sharing system, to include life's needs. Plus we have found doing sharing stalls in real life, that it is a thing that cannot be understood, except by experiencing it. You can talk about ice cream, and the taste of it, or a mango, but the person has to actually taste it to fully understand. It has to be done!

Also the gift economy is not valued. But, it is worse than that. For natural born reasons I don't have much' confidence, and have low self esteem (high within the sharing arena). And my mind goes blank, if I'm not relaxed, and cant get out coherently what I want to say. In our world it is not that there is a hierarchy of low to high. It is that there is a zero crossing point, and things go from bad to good, from -10 to + 10! We are not usually aware of this. It is a very disempowering thing. It is in our cultural belief system, affecting every one of us. Thick to intelligent!. Ugly to beautiful!. Small to tall!. Isnt that really weird?! As if they are opposites! We are culturally affected.

So, what I am saying is, for me, the thing to do is to enhance and create the new system, but it has always existed. The alternative, which is the ancient biggest economy, now too, increase it and find ways of using it be able to provide us with basic life resources, instead of the exchange scare city system.

I dont know how relevant that would be. Isn't the network trying to find ways of remedying the failings of the "market ideology". Whereas the gift economy isn't really concerned with that. It's concerned with the increase of a different economy. circular, not pyramid! Circular values, levelling values, and not in opposition. I would say, bring all in to see the sense of it, the sense of not starving ourselves.

So, for basics, food, warmth, shelter, water that falls upon us, and air, it would only provide the basics, not luxury, food, warmth, shelter, that could go on beng exchanged. It's only the basics that are important. The reason why people, we are really concerned about the credit crunch!

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Hello again. I have a suggestion too. It would be marvellous. I know it would. 

Every small village, every small housing estate in a town or a city, every block of flats, to have a sharing centre, run by the residents, with no board, no separate body. It is a space for them to take their useful items that they no longer want, that are still useful, to put them there for others in there community to have. And they too, can also take away from there, something that they want that someone else has put there for others too.

It will be like Aladin's Cave. It will be like Jack's bag of gold, of goods for the community, it will never run out of useful stuff. All the time when you go, there will be something different. It will stop the awful waste of unconsumed goods. It will put a stop on the piecemeal eating up of the earth's resources. It will also include a little space for teas and coffees, put there also by the same people, which will also never run out of refreshments, which will also seem to miraculously appear there all of the time, as well as the food and cakes etc that are put there. 

It will be a community sharing space, a place where there is no accounting, only sharing, seats, community talk, people meeting, just because its a good friendly place to be. If you don't believe me, just try it on a little stall, put a lot of free things out, and have notices up saying everything's free, take what you want, and put on what you want, and see how it works! Set a stall up on the road outside you local skip compound, and do the same thing, and just see the amount of free goods, that people will give rather than chuck on the skip!

It's a thing which can't be talked. Its a thing which youve got to do and experience. It works. Many years of experience says it does. Theres no money in it, only goods! But, money can come in too, if you put a donation tin in it, like how the vicars and the church, gets there money, without selling anything at all. People share. Personally, I reckon community is it, community is all. Small, linked up. So, what big buildings do mostly every community already have at the centre of their communities, already, and can't get anyone to go there, and they're all being sold off too!

Churches? Strip' em out, and give them to the community for community sharing spaces.
And, very important, no board

O Frank
10th April 2010.